verse, it
will not feeme so: for the odnes will more notoriously appeare, as for
example in the last verse before recited _Not loue but still be sweruing_,
say thus _Loue it is a maruelous thing._ Both verses be of egall
quantitie, vidz. seauen sillables a peece, and yet the first seemes
shorter then the later, who shewes a more odnesse then the former by
reason of his sharpe accent which is vpon the last sillable, and makes him
more audible then if he had slid away with a flat accent, as the word
_sweruing._

Your ordinarie rimers vse very much their measures in the odde as nine and
eleuen, and the sharpe accent vpon the last sillable, which therefore
makes him go ill fauouredly and like a minstrels musicke. Thus sayd one in
a meeter of eleven very harshly in mine eare, whether it be for lacke of
good rime or of good reason, or of both I wot not.
_Now sucke childe and sleepe childe, thy mothers owne ioy
Her only sweete comfort, to drowne all annoy
For beauty surpassing the azured skie
I loue thee my darling, as ball of mine eye._

This sort of compotition in the odde I like not, vnlesse it be holpen by
the _Cesure_ or by the accent as I sayd before.

The meeter of eight is no lesse pleasant then that of sixe, and the
_Cesure_ fals iust in the middle, as this of the Earle of Surreyes.
_When raging loue, with extreme payne._

The meeter of ten sillables is very stately and Heroicall, and must haue
his _Cesure_ fall vpon the fourth sillable, and leaue sixe behind him
thus.
_I serue at ease, and gouerne all with woe._

This meeter of twelue sillables the French man calleth a verse
_Alexandrine_, and is with our moderne rimers most usuall: with the
auncient makers it was not so. For before Sir _Thomas Wiats_ time they
were not vsed in our vulgar, they be for graue and stately matters fitter
than for any other ditty of pleasure. Some makers write in verses of
foureteene sillables giuing the _Cesure_ at the first eight, which
proportion is tedious, for the length of the verse kepeth the eare too
long from his delight, which is to heare the cadence or the tuneable
accent in the ende of the verse. Neuerthelesse that of twelue if his
_Cesure_ be iust in the middle, and that ye suffer him to runne at full
length, and do not as the common rimers do; or their Printer for sparing
of paper, cut them of in the middest, wherin they make in two verses but
halfe rime. They do very wel as wrote the Earle of Surrey tran